at for a little bit.”
Alice said, “Sounds pretty friggin’ stupid to me.”
Alice was already out of sorts that night. Earlier in the day, Jake had pissed all over her collection of New Mutants comic books, so the pages were soft and smelled like pee and the colors were all bleeding together. She had spread them out all over the floor of The Gunner House in the hopes that they might be salvageable once dry.
Sam said, “Screw you, it’s actually like . . . really cool, Alice. You just don’t want to like it because it’s my thing.”
Mikey said, “It sounds scary. Does it make your brain go bad?”
Sam gave Mikey a condescending look. “Make your brain go bad? No, it doesn’t make your brain go bad.”
Jimmy offered, “Well, it probably kills a bunch of brain cells.”
Alice smirked in Sam’s direction. “That would explain a lot.”
Sam struggled the most of all of them in school, barely passing classes and stuttering like a broken lawn mower when asked to read aloud. He said, “Screw you, Alice,” and glanced around the room to see how others were responding to the dig.
Lynn said, “I’ll try it.” Although Lynn was usually fairly quiet, it was not uncharacteristic of her to be the first to try something. A year earlier, she had been the one to introduce alcohol to the group, filling a canteen with her mother’s gin while her mother napped one afternoon and delivering it triumphantly to The Gunner House that evening.
Sam instructed Lynn once again, “Try to remember your dream.”
The other children watched as Lynn crouched on the mattress and began to hyperventilate. She was wearing jeans and a tie-dyed tank top. Her forehead was drizzled with a trail of acne beneath the red curls. The sound of her labored breath began to disturb Mikey, and he tried to think of other things. Then Lynn sat upright and closed her eyes, her face and neck went tight, and several seconds later, everything went very soft. She fell back onto the mattress, wearing a blank and peaceful expression.
The others watched in silence.
After a bit, Sally said, “Should we wake her?”
Sam said, “She’ll be up soon.”
Mikey felt afraid. “Is she breathing?” he said.
“Yes, duh,” Sam said, although he didn’t seem entirely certain.
Soon enough, Lynn’s eyes fluttered open. She rose and stared around the room. She blinked. She gave a quick smile and said, “Hm.”
Sam said, “I told you guys so. I told you guys it was cool.”
Alice said, “What was it like?”
Mikey said, “Was it like you were dead?”
“No . . .” Lynn said. She was quiet for a bit, then she said, “It was like I was alive then, and I’m dead now.”
Sam said, “See, you guys? I told you.”
Sally said, “What did you dream?”
Lynn said, “I dreamed I was playing a concert on a big stage and that guy from school who comes to fix the vending machine when your chips get caught . . . You guys know who I mean, right? He always smells like KFC? Anyway, he was my page-turner, sitting next to me on the piano bench, and in the dream, I think, he did not smell like KFC. But anyway, I was wearing a black velvet dress.” Lynn’s face was bright and animated as she recalled the dream. “I really . . . it was so real.” She turned to Sam. “You’re right . . . it was the realest dream I’ve ever had.”
Sam said, “Who’s going to go next?”
There was a brief and uncomfortable silence among the rest of them. Alice got up to check the progress on her comic books; then she returned.
Mikey said, “Are we having fun? Is this fun?”
Alice said, “Why do you always ask that?”
Sometimes Mikey felt like he was watching his friends through binoculars, even when they were right before him.
Sam said, “Alice, you always say my ideas are stupid. Why don’t you actually try it, then? Unless you’re too scared.”
“Fine, I’ll go, you turd, if it’ll get you to shut up.”
Alice took Lynn’s place on the mattress. She was wearing overalls over a wifebeater, and a backward hat. Mikey wished he were wearing that, too. Instead, he was in denim cutoff shorts and a T-shirt with Garfield on the front and a plate of lasagna on the back.
Alice hyperventilated for many counts. Then she rose, clenched her muscles for a brief time, and wilted backward, just as Lynn had minutes earlier.
Silence. Thirty seconds. A minute.
Lynn finally said, “Was I out this long?”
Sally shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Mikey said, “Do you think she’s okay?”
Sam said, “You guys are such worrywarts.”
It was quiet for a bit. Then Jimmy said, “It has been longer than Lynn, you guys.”
Lynn said, “Is she breathing?”
Sam said, “She’s totally fine.”
Mikey stared at Alice’s empty face. He said, “Are you sure?”
Jimmy said, “Yeah, are you sure?”
Sam leaned over Alice, briefly examined her face, and said sarcastically to the others, “Would you like me to see if she’s breathing?”
Mikey was scared. He did want to know if she was breathing.
Sam said, “Well, okay, fine.” He leaned down into Alice’s face and put an ear to her mouth.
Alice immediately came to life with a blood-curdling shriek, directly into Sam’s ear, and he was so startled he fell backward off the mattress, rolling lopsidedly onto the hardwood floor like an egg and panting. Alice sat up, boiling over with laughter.
The rest of them began to laugh, too. They laughed and laughed, relieved and jump-scared, tickled by Alice’s trick.
Lynn said, “But it worked, right? You passed out first, right? Or were you just pretending the whole time?”
Alice said, “It did work. I just, when I woke up, I decided to pretend for a little bit to try and scare you guys.”
Sally said, “What was your dream when you passed out? Can you remember?”
Alice said, “I did dream. Hang on, let me try to remember.”
She closed her eyes, and shortly, something dark passed over her face. She said, “Oh,” quietly. “Oh.”
